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U.S. Intel Official: North Korea Is Bluffing (Poor Track Record Alert)
NewsSpeak ^ | 5/26/2010 | Mark Hosenball

Posted on 05/27/2010 4:04:24 PM PDT by mojito

Despite all the recent huffing and puffing from Pyongyang, U.S. officials say they’ve seen little physical evidence that North Korea might actually be preparing to go to war. Just hours after Seoul blamed the North for the March 26 sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il publicly ordered his armed forces to get ready for military action, according to sources quoted in The Guardian. But two U.S. national security officials, asking for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, tell Declassified they’re not aware of any intelligence reporting on significant military mobilization or redeployments inside North Korea. The North Korean military is always on the move somewhere, one of the officials said, but at the moment whatever movements are being noted by Western intelligence agencies are regarded as not particularly threatening. A third U.S. foreign policy official, who also asked for anonymity, told Declassified that U.S. agencies are picking up “nothing of extreme concern” in what North Korean forces are currently up to.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: chiahead; korea; northkorea; walmartsupplier
Oh oh. I sure hope these guys aren't being lulled into yet another disasterous misreading of the situation. This kind of seeming unconcern gets me real worried.
1 posted on 05/27/2010 4:04:25 PM PDT by mojito
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To: mojito

That description doesn’t seem to indicate there is clearly not a problem. It sounds more like they don’t have all the intelligence they need, and they don’t KNOW if there’s a problem.


2 posted on 05/27/2010 4:06:25 PM PDT by Nervous Tick (Eat more spinach! Make Green Jobs for America!)
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To: mojito
Some General in NK may just start a war..Why sink a ship..the war has really never stopped...John Batchelor has some pretty good stuff on this..
3 posted on 05/27/2010 4:07:10 PM PDT by Hojczyk
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To: mojito

They want money, a cred boost to tide over Junior in the early part of the impending succession, and western inaction during them next phase of aggressive proliferation.

To get those things, they need to realllllly appear to want to go to WAR, which they know damn well they could not really win.


4 posted on 05/27/2010 4:08:26 PM PDT by gaijin
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To: mojito

The south needs to make a massive first strike, actually it wouldn’t be a first strike since the north already made that by sinking one of the south’s ships.


5 posted on 05/27/2010 4:08:37 PM PDT by Graybeard58 (No Romney,No Mark Kirk (Illinois), not now, not ever!)
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To: mojito

Same thought 1993-2001 about Islam and NYC.


6 posted on 05/27/2010 4:09:03 PM PDT by Dallas59 (President Robert Gibbs 2009-2013)
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To: mojito; AmericanInTokyo

Whistling past the graveyard....

FReeper AmericaninTokyo has posted on several threads reports in Japanese Media of NK troop movements and weapons staging....

The US government may have its eyes squoze tight shut, but others, apparently, are not so willfully blind....


7 posted on 05/27/2010 4:09:46 PM PDT by Uncle Ike (Rope is cheap, and there are lots of trees...)
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To: mojito

Hey, if every time I bluffed my mortal enemies gave me money and concessions, I’d bluff too.


8 posted on 05/27/2010 4:10:30 PM PDT by Mr Ramsbotham (Laws against sodomy are honored in the breech.)
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To: mojito

And the National Weather Service predicted only 2” of rain for Nashville the day of the flood.


9 posted on 05/27/2010 4:11:02 PM PDT by Mr. Jazzy ("I AM JIM THOMPSON and moderates make me PUKE!!!")
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To: gaijin

If they’re bluffing and we know it, WE SHOULD KEEP OUR MOUTHS SHUT!! Kim Jong Il is insane, and few things could be more provocative than telling him to his face he’s not sincere. Besides, we could be wrong.


10 posted on 05/27/2010 4:11:51 PM PDT by Spok (Free Range Republican)
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To: mojito; TigerLikesRooster

From such miscalculations are wars made.


11 posted on 05/27/2010 4:14:13 PM PDT by Travis McGee (---www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com---)
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To: mojito

Japan wouldn’t attack the US.
North Korea wouldn’t cross the DMZ.
Tet? What Tet?
Sadam is not going to invade Kuwait.
Who would fly a airplane into a building?
Yeah, he’s a crazy Islamist US Army Major, but he’s fine.


12 posted on 05/27/2010 4:45:54 PM PDT by Leisler
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To: mojito

Sounds sort of like the Summer of 1990. Sure the Iraqi’s are making threats and moving equipment around, but the would NEVER cross the Kuwaiti border!


13 posted on 05/27/2010 4:53:05 PM PDT by OCC
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To: mojito
In so many words...The so-called Intel Officials don't have a clue what the North is planning.


14 posted on 05/27/2010 4:57:35 PM PDT by darkwing104 (Lets get dangerous)
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To: Uncle Ike

The “intelligence” community has no more idea than I do as to
what the generals in the North are thinking.


15 posted on 05/27/2010 5:07:27 PM PDT by JimSEA
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To: jhpigott; 1COUNTER-MORTER-68

*ping*


16 posted on 05/27/2010 6:02:15 PM PDT by hennie pennie
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